Aspen Global Health and Development

Why We Launched GHD

Most of the developing world will not reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly in health, hunger and poverty reduction, and gaping inequities in health and income remain between the developed and developing world. The last decade has seen progress in reduction of major diseases and in poverty reduction, yet developing country health systems are fragile and large percentages of populations still do not have access to food and basic health care. Integrating health, food security and poverty alleviation strategies is essential for accelerating progress towards the MGDs.

GHD believes that pioneering strategies in global health, food security and poverty alleviation can be taken to scale, in part through broad policy debate and support, innovative public-private partnerships, decentralized capacity building,  cross learning linkages, and systematic efforts to support replication and scale-up. 

At the country level, there is a need for:

• Leadership development and capacity building, particularly in the public sector 
• Integrated solutions that recognize and address the inextricable link between health and poverty, and the full social determinants of health including poverty, economic opportunity, safe water, education, gender discrimination and cultural factors
• Transparent and accountable business models requiring a new set of relationships among small farmers, commercial actors, and intermediaries such as NGOs and small farmer associations that will ensure equity and the inclusion of women

At the regional level, there is a need for:

• Integrated markets to enhance opportunities to trade and promote a more efficient alignment between private and public investment
• A demand-driven approach to policy interventions that targets barriers standing in the way of growth
• Regional and international cooperation to ensure policy structures better support development

A legacy program of Realizing Rights, Global Health & Development (GHD) was established as the newest policy program of the Aspen Institute on October 1, 2009 to work on innovative approaches to poverty alleviation, in particular, on identifying approaches that address both health and poverty alleviation and their interrelationship.  The program also intends to explore programs and partnerships related to the social determinants of health, including clean water, the environment, and social and cultural elements that influence health outcomes and poverty. GHD is also pioneering new public-private approaches to food security in Africa at the intersection of trade, agriculture, and development.